So, recently we have had a rash of gun-killings, presumably gang-related in our community.
The most recent was at 6:30 p.m. last Saturday evening. Someone was shot right out in front of a house on a fairly busy street in an area in which many, many children live -- less than a block from an elementary school and across from an ice cream shop.
With the help of people in the community, the police apprehended the murderer. Great work on the part of the police. That kind of work is what causes people in LA to respect the police (although they can go to extremes in bashing people who are exercising their First Amendment rights).
So what happens next?
The Neighborhood Council has voted to have cameras installed on the street on which this incident occurred as well as on another major thoroughfare in the area which has seen recent gang/gun violence.
I do not want to have my personal privacy invaded in this fashion. I walk and shop on those streets as do many others. This is not a downtown district but a local neighborhood.
I think we can safely assume that in a gang-killing, the killed as well as the killer have equal access to guns. Surprise is the decisive factor in deciding who is the killer and who is killed, not lack of access to guns. Loosening gun laws probably would not help and might endanger the small children who play and live on the street.
I know that if you live in a small town somewhere or in a gated community or among mostly middle-class or wealthy people, the threat of this kind of crime is not something you worry about. Murders are done in homes, neatly sheltered from a passersby on the streets or people living in crowded apartment houses.
But, this is the kind of problem that we face in large cities. And less often in LA than in many other big cities.
Some compassion please. Another young person was needlessly shot down. A mother crying. A family in mourning. Do I personally know them? Does it make any difference? This is a terrible loss.
What do you think about this?
What kinds of laws might prevent this? Do you think the surveillance cameras on the streets are the solution?
By the way, our prisons are so full that we can't afford to keep everyone who is sentenced in long enough to serve their full time. So additional prison time is not a good answer. Not unless we want to either raise taxes or steal the money from the schools.
What to do???
= new reply since forum marked as read
of creepy and Orwellian. Even though technically there isn't an expectation of privacy on a public street, I think that most people do expect not to be watched when no other people are in eyeshot. Also, it seems that there is a potential for abuse when cameras become ubiquitous and the data collection/monitoring doesn't have some stringent safeguards built in.
Who is going to monitor those cameras? As I recall, LAPD has a pretty poor track record in maintaining the cameras they already have. 
There was a segment on NPR recently (I don't recall which show or date) about cameras, and one researcher was describing systems that were monitored by computer - only summoning a human if unusual patterns were detected. That was one way to limit the privacy concern, but the difficulty was programming in all the vagaries of 'normal' human behavior. Other privacy protections I'd want might be leaving the cameras unmonitored and just recording to watch if a crime was reported. And, erasing the data after 48-72 hours or so. Cameras could also be left lidded, and only open when an alarm was pressed or 911 call was made...
Serious question: when has gun control ever solved a gang problem?
